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China on course to become ‘world’s most Christian nation’ within 15 years – Telegraph

This article from the Telegraph has been picked up by a number of news outlets including the secular press (e.g. Huffington Post) and the religious press. It is a fair description of the growth of the Church which continues to surprise the Communist authorities and secular leaders in the West. The Pew Center’s number of Chinese Christians today is quite possibly too low. They estimate 58 million Protestants, without giving a current number of Catholics. Asia Harvest estimates 84 million Protestants and 21 million Catholics. The Chinese government itself published a number of 130 million Christians back in 2006.

The article further suggests that the growth of the Church is likely to create tensions with the Communist Party. More likely, tensions within the Party are more likely to draw the Church in as a pawn in their intra-party debates. The larger debate for the Party is the rise of capital and capitalism–when is enough enough? Has the affluence of some corrupted the communist ideals of the party? Etc. The opportunity for the Gospel is huge, the challenges will require much prayer, faithfulness, and humility.